It is well known that data communication networks such as the Internet, Wide Area Networks (WANs) and Local Area Networks (LANs), offer efficient and ubiquitous means of organizing and distributing computerized data. These attributes have resulted in their widespread use for both business and personal applications. For example, the Internet is now a common medium for operating online auctions, academic and public forums, distributing publications such as newspapers and magazines, and performing electronic commerce and electronic mail transactions.
New services are being provided over the Internet which are personalized or customized to users' requirements, which has resulted in personal data being stored in the service provider's domain. However, there are no effective ways for the user to easily relocate this personal data from one service provider to another; personal data residing with the old service provider must be manually re-entered with the new service provider.
FIG. 1 presents an exemplary system for a typical networked application or service, such as electronic mail (E-mail). The interconnection of various hosts and other devices is shown over an Internet 100. The Internet 100 consists of a vast interconnection of computers, servers, routers, computer networks and public telecommunication networks which allows two parties to communicate via whatever entities happen to be interconnected at any particular time. Presently, the systems that make up the Internet 100 comprise many different varieties of computer hardware and software. In general, this variety is not a great hindrance as the Internet 100 is unified by a small number of standard transport protocols.
Access to this Internet 100 is provided by Internet Service Providers (ISP) 130 who convert the various communication protocols used by end-user computers 140, 150 to the standard Internet protocols. For example, end users 140, 150 may be connected to an ISP 130 using wireless communications, or hardwired connections such as cable modems, television set-top boxes, or telephone line modems, using various technologies such as ADSL (asynchronous digital subscriber line), ISDN (integrated services digital network), or other known media and technologies.
Additionally, a number of Application Service Providers (ASP) 110, 120 are typically connected to the Internet 100. These ASPs 110, 120 are third-parties which provide software and other computer-based services to users across a wide area network from a remote location. Generally, these services are provided for a fee (usually monthly or yearly), though the ASPs 110, 120 may offer basic services for no cost and generate revenues in a peripheral manner, such as through advertising or sale of advanced services. The services offered by the ASPs 110, 120 might include:                commercial or personal banking;        investment services such as stock portfolio tracking;        calendar/appointment books;        contact lists, address books;        mailing lists;        sports/news/entertainment/weather forecast preferences;        document storage, file backup services, distributed or shared files provider;        collaboration tools such as message boards;        sales automation applications;        folders;        project files;        enterprise resource planning (ERP) software;        entertainment services, such as networked games; and        office applications.        
Generally, a service such as Email may be provided by a number of competing ASPs 110, 120. Many of these ASPs 110, 120 provide their service using a standard protocol, HTML (hypertext markup language), which allows access in a ubiquitous fashion from any computer having an appropriate ‘browser’ connected to the Internet. HTML is one of the standard languages of the Internet 100 for defining the structure and format of a web page.
When an end-user wishes to access their Email, they do so by ‘connecting’ to their Email provider, for example, ASP 110 and logging on by entering a userID and Password in response to a challenge from the ASP 110. Standard HTML or equivalent protocols allow the end-user to read, create, send, and store Emails as well as create, read and store related information such as address lists, on the Email provider's 110 website.
FIG. 1 is something of a simplification, as ISPs 130 and ASPs 110, 120 are often connected to the Internet 100 through Network Access Points (NAPs), rather than directly as shown in FIG. 1. As well, the Internet 100 itself is far more complex than that shown in FIG. 1, including for example, leased and private communication lines and subnetworks, firewalls and routers. However, these details would be well known to one skilled in the art.
Presently, the only way to relocate personal data from one service provider to another is to do so manually. In the case of Email, for example, relocating from ASP 110 to ASP 120 would require one to:    1. create a new Email account on ASP 120;    2. recreate the address book or contacts list, which might involve accessing both accounts and manually ‘cutting and pasting’ individual entries from one service provider to the other. In the best case, an intermediate file would be created by the user by ‘exporting’ data from the old Email ASP server 110 and ‘importing’ that same data into the new Email ASP server 120, possibly requiring some experimentation or conversion to rationalise the two formats;    3. retain access to old Email, both sent and received;    4. replicate the folder structure used to store Emails, which involves inspecting the existing structure and manually creating the same, or similar folder structure on the new Email ASP server 120;    5. individually transfer each Email message from the old Email ASP server 110 by copying it to their computer, and possibly manipulating its format, then copying it from there to the new Email ASP server 120;    6. periodically checking the old Email ASP account to collect Email sent to the old address, with the consequent need to regularly check two accounts, and the possibility of forgetting to access the old Email account regularly, and missing important messages until they are too old;    7. inform all Email contacts of the new address; and    8. arrange for the old Email provider to forward any new Email to the new account.
Thus, when an end-user wishes to change from one Email provider to another, the transfer or copying of the data stored on the first (old) ASP's server to the second (new) ASP's server is a major investment in time for the end-user, and is an error-prone process. Omission of a single file could be critical, and at the least annoying. Further, if the Emails had been stored in some form of hierarchy using ‘folders’, then this folder structure must also be recreated, and the files sent to the appropriate folder. As a consequence, misfiling is another potential hazard.
Because of the physical difficulty and practical hazards of relocating personal data from one ASP 110, 120 to another, end-users have been reluctant to do so; a condition known in the industry as ‘stickiness’, since users are forced to ‘stick’ with one service. This “stickiness” presents a tremendous barrier to the entry of new ASPs and to open competition between existing providers. To capture costumers from their competition, a new provider must offer enough of an incentive in terms of price, features, or quality to convince customers to accept the difficulties of relocating ASPs.
If the above problems could be overcome, end-users could easily transfer their personal data from one Application Service Provider to another, reducing the barriers to new competition, and permitting the end-user to exercise real choice.
There is therefore a need for a means of replicating the personalized environment from one service provider to another, over the Internet and similar networks, provided with consideration for the problems outlined above.